Best England team, ever?

[SJS]

I disagree, IMO he's a true great.

Of course he is a great but so is Verity

I think Underwood was very successful on helpful wickets but was very ordinary on flat tracks due to his fastish (virtually no flight) style of bowling. Again its just an opinion

I have seen Underwood quite a bit but naturally only read about Verity.

 

[Sussexshark]

Just to be a little off the wall here:

J B Hobbs
H Sutcliffe
K S Ranjitsinji
W R Hammond
C B Fry
L E G Ames
W Rhodes
G Hirst
S F Barnes
T Richardson (1000 wickets in 4 years!)
A P Freeman

Just my three-ha'pence worth!

Peter

 

[Camel56]

where is W G Grace you clowns?

as for Laker he was an absolute plodder except for one series which included that notable test at manchester.

 

[wpdavid]

where is W G Grace you clowns?

as for Laker he was an absolute plodder except for one series which included that notable test at manchester.

Apparently we weren't paying WG enough for him to turn up.

And I'll let someone else calculate Laker's test stats withiut the 1956 ashes. I suspect "plodder" may not be the most accurate description ever.

 

[Sussexshark]

Apparently we weren't paying WG enough for him to turn up.

And I'll let someone else calculate Laker's test stats withiut the 1956 ashes. I suspect "plodder" may not be the most accurate description ever.

I would agree there. Jim Laker was one of our greatest spin bowlers, along with Verity and Freeman. As for WG, Camel's made a good point about all of us omitting him, but who on earth can I take out of my eleven? And there's the rub... we are all going to have our views and even our own views will differ from day to day.

Take out Hirst and replace with the good doctor.

Peter

 

[a massive zebra]

I would agree there. Jim Laker was one of our greatest spin bowlers, along with Verity and Freeman. As for WG, Camel's made a good point about all of us omitting him, but who on earth can I take out of my eleven? And there's the rub... we are all going to have our views and even our own views will differ from day to day.

Take out Hirst and replace with the good doctor.

Freeman?? He may have rolled over average county players but was a liability against quality batsmen and for that very reason played about 12 Tests. To rank him above people like Rhodes or Underwood is ludicrous.

 

[a massive zebra]

Apparently we weren't paying WG enough for him to turn up.

And I'll let someone else calculate Laker's test stats withiut the 1956 ashes. I suspect "plodder" may not be the most accurate description ever.

147 wickets @ 24.47

So even excluding ''Laker's Ashes'' the great off-spinner was still a match for any English spinner in history.

 

[Camel56]

Yes perhaps they arent bad figures but certainly not a match winner int he same mould as S K Warne.

 

[Top_Cat]

I'm gather this XI thing is post-war? Because it would be tough to leave The Doctor out of any side.

Jack Hobbs
Len Hutton
Ken Barrington
Wally Hammond
Denis Compton
Wilfred Rhodes
Godfrey Evans
Fred Trueman
Alec Bedser
Brian Statham
Hedley Verity

Man, there were some damn tough calls to make! I mean, Peter May, John Edrich, Alan Knott, Derek taylor, etc. all miss out and on any given day, I'd probably change my mind several times. What a side though, eh?

 

[marc71178]

Yes perhaps they arent bad figures but certainly not a match winner int he same mould as S K Warne.

Very debateable.

 

[a massive zebra]

Yes perhaps they arent bad figures but certainly not a match winner int he same mould as S K Warne.

His average excluding that phenomenal series is still better than Warne's career average.

 

[Camel56]

Average alone doesnt tell the full story. I think wisden putting Warne in the team of the century does though. Warne well and truely better than Laker.

 

[steds]

I don't think the two are comparable, as the game now is so different to when Laker played.

 

[Richard]

If Laker were to play now, he'd be considered wholly average, I can categorically assure you of that.
If Ashley Giles' career were to have formed in the wet 60s (when Derek Underwood's career started, and in which he began averaging something like 17 per wicket) he'd, I can equally surely tell you, be considered an all-time great in the manner of Laker.
Some people can't comprehend that, it just will not register that spin-bowling is a totally different kettle-of-fish, and it's very unfair on fingerspinners of today to say that all these former bowlers must have been infinately better than them.
How can it possibly be coincidence that before 1970 there were plenty of great English spinners (Rhodes, Blythe, Verity, Lock [everyone always seems to forget him], Laker, Underwood) - and no-one after? It can't. Yet it is simply beyond comprehension for most that Emburey, Edmonds, Giles, Croft and the like could conceivably have been as good.
We don't, meanwhile, know how Warne, Murali et all would have fared had there been spin-friendly conditions occurring with the regularity they occurred with before 1970, let alone before 1930. The fact that Grimmett, O'Reilly and the like had figures that were merely as good suggests that Warne and Murali might be better, but it really is not possible to do anything but guess (or, of course, make biased judgements in favour of the more recent players, a choice many make).

 

[Camel56]

Who considers Laker an all-time great? No one i know does. The fact is he is remembered for one ashes series in 1956 and really only for one test in the series at Manchester. Apart from that what else is he remembered for? Nothing.

 

[marc71178]

If Laker were to play now, he'd be considered wholly average, I can categorically assure you of that.

Of course you can, but then again the number of times that real life has shown your perfect world of Cricket to be wrong means I pay no heed to your catergorical assurance.

 

[Richard]

Typical of you, pay attention to the minority and hide your eyes from the majority.
Uncanny resemblence to the First-Class-Test thing, here...

 

[Richard]

Who considers Laker an all-time great? No one i know does. The fact is he is remembered for one ashes series in 1956 and really only for one test in the series at Manchester. Apart from that what else is he remembered for? Nothing.

Except for the many times he took large bags of wickets for not many runs.
His most significant achievement, indeed, was his part in bowling out the Aussies in the second-innings at The Oval in 1953, and helping regain The Ashes after 20 years.
Laker is considered by most people to be one of the best spinners of all-time. Yet were Ashley Giles and his playing eras to be swapped, it'd be the other way around.
Fingerspinners cannot be great bowlers from 1970 onwards, unless they manage to play most of their cricket in the subcontinent.

 

[Top_Cat]

Richard does make a good point (albeit indirectly); I doubt spinners like Laker would have been quite as effective today. Ignoring pitches, changes to teh LBW laws mean that spinners find it a heck of a lot tougher to get a LBW decisions go their way. The instances of batsmen being almost guaranteed a not-out if they played forward enough and attempt a shot weren't anything resembling a guarantee before the 70's. Batsmen were being given out if an LBW just 'looked' out and as long as, in the opinion of the umpire, it was going on to hit the stumps, that was enough. Now, particularly for spinners going around the wicket, it's very tough to get one going your way.

 

[Richard]

Given the extraordinary number of lbw decisions which actually had everything right but "looked not out" on first sight (usually involving "getting a big stride") IMO the retro-theory was the better.
All batsmen, through a career, receive far more good luck than bad.